Reid foresaw safc demise


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First of all Hutch was the replacement for Summerbee with a change of system and we reached our highest finishes without Johnston so its a bit harsh to say he wasn't replaced. If you look at Peter Reid's signings as a collective they were magnificent. You don't get a team from the jaws of the third division to second top of the premier league capable of beating anyone home and away without being excellent in the transfer market. He got it wrong from the summer of 2001 with a shit window and didn't replace Quinn and ultimately he paid the price. However its wholly wrong to say he was poor in the transfer market, the progress the club made under him proves that.


In the latter years he constantly claimed he had money to spend and didnt. Then Flo, how in the name of god could he have even thought that would work. Hutch was not a replacement for Summerbee, he may have played wide on occasions, we never replaced him. So we didnt replace Summerbee, we didnt replace Hutch, we didnt replace Quinn and we didnt replace Bridges, I will let you off with the Johnson one, but we will never know how good he may/may not have been in the top flight, I might even add Makin to that list

Reid gave me the best years of being a supporter, but he certainly didnt have a plan for the future when his team was disintegrating.
 
Yeah, wasn't meant to slag him off. He was largely brilliant for most of his 7 years here. Kept us up against all odds, performed a miracle in getting us up (with largely the same squad) the following season, nearly kept us up with one of the poorest squads the PL had seen, then gave us 4 amazing years at the SOL.

He made mistakes - relying too heavily on Quinn without a backup plan, ostracising Bridges and Johnston, letting Hutchison go, sacking Bobby Saxton and wasting money on the likes of Laslandes and Flo as direct replacements for Quinn when they were totally different players. He also wasted a lot of money on a lot of players who never got on the pitch (Helmer, Zoetebier, Wainwright, Harrison, Mercimek, Medinia, Weaver, Eriksson, Nunez, Peeters...)

The way I see it is that Reid was a brilliant man manager building teams around team spirit. However this was done in the main via a big drinking culture.

When you have a team full of brits/Irish you can get away with it, and it worked for us.

The game changed with the influx of foreign talent who don't have that drinking culture we do. So when we started signing more oversees players he struggle with creating that team spirit he previously did.
 
don’t agree with Reidy’s recollection of this but he’s still a legend.

IIRC it only cost about £6m to extend and we filled it all the next 2 seasons so it paid for itself.

Pretty sure I remember Reidy being stubborn & not spending when we were doing well saying it’s was the ‘fans money & he would spend it wisely’, then he blew it all on crap when the wheels fell off & the pressure was on him.
 
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In the latter years he constantly claimed he had money to spend and didnt. Then Flo, how in the name of god could he have even thought that would work. Hutch was not a replacement for Summerbee, he may have played wide on occasions, we never replaced him. So we didnt replace Summerbee, we didnt replace Hutch, we didnt replace Quinn and we didnt replace Bridges, I will let you off with the Johnson one, but we will never know how good he may/may not have been in the top flight, I might even add Makin to that list

Reid gave me the best years of being a supporter, but he certainly didnt have a plan for the future when his team was disintegrating.

Reid got sacked I think rightly for the reasons you give after doing an absolutely magnificent job til the summer of 2001. He had made mistakes and I think his time was up. He was here 6 years and on the whole did an incredible job. Through Murray and Reid the club had grown from a shambles to become one of the biggest clubs in the country in terms of turnover, support and league position. The depth of ill feeling is staggering. He came in a disastrous situation, gave us some unbelievable years watching Sunderland and was sacked when it started to unravel. Even then he didn't leave us in disastrous situation, the club still had everything going for it with the right managerial appointment.
 
Heard Quinn talk about how we should have spent the academy money on players as well.

Would have been a huge gamble in my opinion, could have ended up Reid wasting the money (like he did with the vast mojority he was given), and had another couple of Flos, Fredguaards and Nunez's, and nothing to show for it.
 
Not sure why this thread was started it’s a well known fact that Reidy didn’t want the ground extended he has said this multiple times over the years, also not sure how this means he foresaw our demise!
Aye let’s just knock the greatest manager we’ve had in the last 50 years bunch of knackers
Reid got sacked I think rightly for the reasons you give after doing an absolutely magnificent job til the summer of 2001. He had made mistakes and I think his time was up. He was here 6 years and on the whole did an incredible job. Through Murray and Reid the club had grown from a shambles to become one of the biggest clubs in the country in terms of turnover, support and league position. The depth of ill feeling is staggering. He came in a disastrous situation, gave us some unbelievable years watching Sunderland and was sacked when it started to unravel. Even then he didn't leave us in disastrous situation, the club still had everything going for it with the right managerial appointment.
Agree full of knackers on this post most probably didn’t even go to the matches and just wrote a letter to teletext!
 
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Thought the extension was just so we could extend it further in the future should it become necessary - like a planning permission thing.
 
the man who gave us 2 7th placed finishes

the man who brought in the best striker we will ever see in our lifetime

the man who built a promotion winning squad so good that when first teamers were injured reserved slotted in seamlessly

the man that ressurected Quinnys career

the man who put together one of the premier leagues best ever strike force

the man who gave Us something to shout about again
Are your initials TL
 
Good post. I suppose the counter to that is that Craig Russell was fit but wasn't being played. You could even argue that Ball could have gone to centre back alongside Melville, and shoved Howey up front, but I do agree with you. We'd switched to 4-5-1 after the 2-6 at Chelsea, signed Waddle and Johnston, and it had been relatively successful. The main issue for me was not really having an attacking central midfielder to feed off anything that Stewart won. Had we had a McCann or a Hutchison at the time, I think we'd have been fine, but Bracewell, Ball and Williams weren't going to get you many goals from midfield.
Rae should have played more that season. He could have been the ACM. We didn’t really get to see how good he was until the season or 2 after.
 
I think it cant be stated enough how much that period did for Sunderland as a club. I remember being at school in 94 when everyone was a Man United fan or a Liverpool fan. When the Premier League came it, there was a whole new group of fans looking to be "entertained" as opposed to supporting the lads. That Reidy side from about late 95 until 2001 made us a proper outfit. Obviously it wasnt just him, but he dragged us out of the shite in his first season. 7th place finish, 42,000 stadium, brilliant football. It was an amazing time.

Something definitely changed, though. Some Big Sam level shit must have went on with some backhanders, because Reid's attitude went from not spending a few extra thousand to bring in players to drag us out of the relegation dog fight in 97 to negotiationing deals where he was taken for a ride by Leicester for Matty Piper of all people. He must have had some financial insentive to bring in some of the shite he did.
 
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Why the panic to extend the north stand? Spend the money on the team and if the day ever came to extend, increase the capacity of the south stand.
 
I love Reid. Simple.

But he was a throw back of a manager. As a team we were at our best when we had traditional UK players that Reid understood the mindset set of. The type where a few games and a piss up solved a million issues.

Quinn resurgence was the catalyst, Phillips fed off the big man and Summerbees delivery was exceptional. Left side worked perfectly with right footed Johnston and Gray bombing on. Very basic. Very effective due to its component parts.

He could spot a player that was a throwback the issue came when the PL changed and became a more tactical animal, the importance of cheap foreign players with a different culture entirely. Head tennis and Wednesday Club weren’t enough.

And I’m still adamant that his shares and their value started to influence his decisions to. Not right that a manager has such a vested interest beyond the white lines.

Still love the twat though.
 
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